Rebellion
by Cael Fenton
Summary: Even in the desert, love can be more than a memory. A post RotS story in three parts.
1. The Burial Of Caravans

**Author's note**: I posted this little story here to celebrate the end of my final exams for the year. The subject matter is perhaps overdone, at best, and is old ground that has been trod by many writers far worthier than I, but I hope my essay into this area will be found acceptable.

_Rebellion_ takes place about eleven months after the events of RotS.

**Disclaimer**: All recognisable characters are property of Lucasfilm. I make no monetary profit from this, nor do I intend to.

**Part I: The Burial Of Caravans**

The bitter suns, crouched low and jealous in the cauterised white sky, cast a hard-edged gaze upon the endless swathes of desert sand. Burned by the young morning suns, sand and sky merged at some distant point into a prostrate white blankness. Throughout the simmering air of the desert, still and gasping for breath, in all its wide sparse stretches of light tan sand and planes of seared rock, there was not so much an outpouring of blazing heat from the baleful suns as there was a marked absence of any relief from Tatooine's pitiless nature. Yet though no wind blowing across the wasteland softened the slap of the suns' stinging heat, and no drop of cool rain fell from any grey wisp of passing cloud, it had sheltered for three years now a lonely man outlawed from the Empire.

The outlaw limped now over the dunes, his faded brown hood offering a paltry shield from the suns for his lined weary face. He ran a swollen tongue over his dry lips, wondering, not for the first time, nor for the last, why he had not thought to bring any water. In a strange and delicate way that was quite removed from the limitations and needs of his body, he enjoyed these long, entirely voluntary walks he often undertook. Here, beneath the shade of a rock, in the lee of a dune, through a burrow in the sand, life held on under the desert's lack of mercy, fingers scrabbling for a handhold in the sheer walls of the pit, legs swinging as it clung to light above the yawning chasm. Whenever he was given a chance, he did his utmost to give it a hand up.

He walked, thought, lived, this outlaw—breathed in, out, the dry burning air of the desert, watched the sluggish sand lizards at the fringes of his vision, heard the roar of the krayt dragons in the throes of their passion far off, gave no resistance to the fierceness of the animal hope of life. Defiantly, he raised his greying head to the proud, youthful suns looming just above the horizon,

And saw, with an exponentialling horror, an orange cloud rearing its huge domed head above the horizon as billowing folds of xanthin sand slipped away and fell roaring toward him, a smothering blanket that thundered past the suns and tore up sand and sky so that they seemed no longer old and thin and burned but vigourously alive and armed with claws of flaming sand that ripped the weary air. He stood paralysed, heard three heartbeats pounding so loud in his ears, and ran like an animal.

He could not outrun the winds that sped unchecked over the desert flats, he knew, without the Son of Suns at his side. And still Obi-Wan ran, and looked back. Trembled, feared, sweated. He would not make it to the west side of the Jundland Wastes before this southeasterly storm did. Why, for love of the Force, had he come so far from safety, alone? Had he hoped for a glimpse of Luke Skywalker? Fool he, seeking hope. Hopeless.

'Aaah…'

_Focus your concentration here and now, where it belongs._

'…unh.' Sprawled on the ground, he choked sand down his parched throat. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled a few more steps before turning to face the oncoming storm. It was a full-blown sandstorm—_khar-effendi_, the Jawas named it: that which flays the beasts, or _namir-faladh_: the burial of caravans. And he stood, here, defenceless, a dozen klicks from the only shelter he knew. Already, his right foot and left lower calf were trapped in settling sand. He yanked them free, and scanned the vicinity for any form of shelter.

A large dark mass that had a comforting bulk about its form through the poor visibility, not far off…He remembered leaning into the shade of a granite overhang weeks ago, as he rested on the way to Anchorhead. It could save his life today. The rock was on his right, northward, a little less then three klicks away, a distance he could cover in ten minutes. And so he ran, being careful this time to watch his step.

The storm's fury was almost upon him, suns shining biliously through the swirling clouds of yellow sand. He had the sudden sensation of swimming, and the image of the granite overhang wavered, trembled, as though viewed through depth of lakewater. He was no longer aware whether he was treading the sand flats or was being borne aloft on streaming currents of sand grains that drove through gaps and rents in his tunic, into his skin.

He slowed as he reached his safety. The last he had seen it, the rocky outcropping had been more than six times his height. Now it was two-thirds its original towering grandeur. He stepped forward, focused on the rock, drew himself into a shallow crease within the ancient folds of igneous rock. Pensively, he tucked his legs under him. Shelter from the storm. It was his first time enduring _khar-effendi_ outdoors. How this planet aged one! Harsh and hard and bleak—he constantly felt as though he walked the edge of a steel blade. And yet the desert was filled with light. Obi-Wan glanced toward the low-slung suns, just visible through the thickening sand, and fought to clamp down on the pain of memory that swelled within him at the thought.

Oh, Anakin.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he allowed past wounds to be stingingly bathed in momentary, saline recollection. When he opened them, he realised with dizzying shock that the sand drifts piling in front of his temporary shelter were almost high enough to block his view of the pallid sky. Evidently, although he was on the leeward side of the rock, his back to the wind, he could not afford to detach himself from the present. _Focus your concentration_…He stifled a quiet groan. How many times had Qui-Gon exhorted him to do just that? How often had he said the same to Anakin?

A jaw muscle twitched as he tried to relax his tense body. He was getting rusty, having failed thus far to follow Master Yoda's strict meditation regime. He dared not consciously touch the Force any more, for fear that would lead Vader to him—and Luke. Tentatively, he released his hold over his conscious mind just a little, letting the Force trickle rather than flow, feeling like an awkward four-year-old embarking on his first meditation exercises all over again. It was no longer as natural as breathing to him, but still Obi-Wan took to the renewed presence of the Force in him like a parched man to water.

No. Not quite. He was careful. Controlled. The storm crashed around him, and he lay at its burning heart, and its blasting fury left a thousand tiny nicks in his skin, and he knew unspeakable darkness was outside its sphere. _Control_…He drew the Force to himself, not him to it. It blossomed at his touch, not to the steel-scalding, starbursting, cosmos-enveloping vastness Qui-Gon had shown him so long ago, but so he knew each dust particle around the rock in which he crouched, in his clothes and hair and skin, grating against his physical tenderness. Physicalness. Sand chafed against his inner thighs as he shifted his weight and opened his eyes. He rose rather stiffly, and stood partially inside his semi-cave's mouth, kicking away sand drifts with his booted feet. The Force could be so dark and cold…

Memory convulsed through him again. Grief effervesced, and fulminated in his ears, louder and more terrible than any sandstorm, not so much for what he had lost, but for what could have been. Briefly, he closed his eyes, reaching blindly, within and without, for comfort—it was then that he sensed it.

It was not a disturbance. It was a convergence, a condensation. Crystallisation. Solidification. A glowing warmth that felt so alien to the universe, and so—_aah!_—familiar. He jerked forward, his eyes snapping open, but there was nothing to be seen in the sandstorm outside.

Obi-Wan considered the two suns glaring down at him for a long moment, then inclined his head thoughtfully, almost respectfully, and retreated into the granite overhang. As he did so, an odd sensation caressed his consciousness, something he hadn't experienced in a long time. Years. Many years. But he had felt not so much that achingly familiar sensation as he had his response to it—an instinctive half-smile had formed on his mouth. He allowed himself a small grin that seemed somehow both more youthful and more tired that that initial, inbred reaction—_that_ had taken habitual root over twelve years.

'I don't recall calling for you, Master. Yoda said—' It felt foolish, speaking softly to jaundiced sky and gusting sand, and yet somehow more dignified than attempting to communicate telepathically with some invisible entity.

_And when do you think I began following Master Yoda's instructions, Obi-Wan?_

He made the mistake—yet again!—of lifting his face to the surging storm outside. Tatooine did not allow for mistakes. They left you clinging desperately to survival, or sprawled helpless on the floor, or a semi-conscious burden on your Padawan's back. This time, though, he was punished with merely a painful blast of sand in his eyes that left his vision teary and blurred.

'Qui-Gon, I'll wait the storm out here.'

The Force sighed with regret. _Did you see Luke today?_

He turned into the shade, scrubbing at his burning eyes. 'And what if I have?'

Sometimes, Qui-Gon had been the perfect diplomat; other times, he was more direct than a lightsaber thrust. Obi-Wan was still trying to figure out which of the two tacks he was adopting when his Master's question echoed at him through the shifting sands of the Force: _Do you love the boy?_

He stiffened, his eyes narrowing as he kept his face turned away from the storm—as to why, he wasn't sure. He supposed that Qui-Gon, being now part of the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Force, would be able to read his facial expressions and body language from the inside of the cave just as well as from the outside. Anger bled into his terse reply. 'Which boy?' he asked aloud.

_It depends on whether you love that which you cannot love, or that which is unlovable. Or none. Or both_. To Obi-Wan, it seemed as though the storm had descended on him and condensed to form words not enough for them. For love, and for jealousy, for the sweet and for the bitter, for brotherhood and paternity and pain. There were not words enough. He drew his knees up against his chin, and his lost gaze found greyness in the firestorm of the sky and burning sand.

'Don't—' His voice cracked like a night wind purling the dunes, and he unexpectedly found enough strength to curse his weakness.

The storm that towered over his head roared like a lusty krayt dragon. _Would you seal your ears against the will of the Force, now, Obi-Wan?_

Sudden fury tore him from the relative safety of his hollow like a whiplash rending skin from flesh. He staggered out into merciless, pitiless _khar-effendi_, his throat dry with throbbing thirst, his eyes flooded with raging sorrow. Sand slashed across his vision, and he shouted, 'You're a fine one to talk, _Master_, about loving fallen Jedi!' But the wind howled louder, and blowing sand mauled his voice to a painful bleeding rasp. He shouted again, in words that were torn from him so quickly he could not hear them, and then he shouted some more, a wordless, primally universal cry.

He was only vaguely aware of running dazed, of confusion, turning so the wind blew straight at him, of sand leaving skin scraped raw and bleeding where his cloak did not cover his face and neck and hands. And, at the end, at the end, he was no longer aware of a firm gentleness that turned his body as he fell so that as darkness took him away from Tatooine, and _khar-effendi_, and Senators, and Naboo, and Mustafar, and beauty, and light, and evil, and heat, as his lips brushed dust and his arms embraced earth, he was a little more sheltered from the storm.


	2. Dust On The Wind

**Disclaimer**: All recognisable characters are property of Lucasfilm. I make no monetary profit from this, nor do I intend to.

**Part II: Dust On The Wind**

He found himself in a strange place, in an in-between place. As though wedged between a dilapidated slum and a senator's mansion, Obi-Wan blinked away the muddied passage of unconsciousness. The sandstorm raged, yet to exhaust itself, but he discovered that he didn't care. A translucent film of eternity had been placed over everything, and he tried in vain to resist the idea that he saw things clearer through it.

_Love is not the illusion, life is._

For a moment, it seemed as though someone had taken a fistful of colourless dust and used it to form a picture of Qui-Gon Jinn on the jaundiced canvas of the fevered storm. Obi-Wan inhaled deeply, and slowly breathed out emotion. Even if his eyes had seen any such thing, he knew it would be entirely due to his own perception of the Force. It simply wasn't his Master's way to rise from coagulating sand in the middle of a Tatooine sandstorm like some apparition of the Whills.

Besides, reflected Obi-Wan ruefully, Qui-Gon had never quite learned to like his broken nose.

Objective reality, factual physicality, eluded him. There was only the Force. _Talk to me, Master, not at me!_

The Force spoke in the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn. _Have you given up hope, Obi-Wan? Despair is of darkness._

'Darkness…' He was vaguely wondered if he was still capable of stringing a coherent sentence together. 'Has perfect union with the Force bestowed on you transcendence above the pain of ten thousand worlds, Qui-Gon?'

_He is dead_, thought Obi-Wan furiously, _he is beyond pain. I can no more hurt him than I can hurt the Force, and I should be thankful for that._ The Force swirled and rippled, muddied with darkness. But in this moment, in _this_ moment, the Force was Qui-Gon Jinn, and Qui-Gon Jinn was the Force, and Obi-Wan thought, _Let not this last sanctuary be sullied. Let it not be spoiled. Please_. And it was all right, light, only he could not see it.

_When that which is invulnerable chooses to be with the vulnerable, we call it love. Obi-Wan._

He set his shoulders rigid, trying to keep them from shaking. A crushing realisation had struck him as Qui-Gon spoke—that neither love nor hope nor even duty bound him here, in a dusty hut on this sweltering armpit of a planet, in this foul universe. It was despair, debilitating inertia.

_Let it go, Padawan. Let it go. Despair is of darkness—so is anger. So is fear. So is hate. Despair is sin is lack of trust, of love._

He lifted his nose bare inches from the sand. 'Can't there be love without trust?'

_Can there?_ And in that moment, he didn't know if the Force spoke, or if it was his own parched voice he had heard. _Trust is luxury, hard won, easily lost._

_Obi-Wan, love those you love as they deserve to be loved. That is immortality—selfless love. And faith. Faith in the Force, in Its Chosen One._

'Faith. In An-Anakin.' The name stumbled from between his lips like dirty joke.

_Pure faith._ The Force spoke, but it did not command. Invulnerable, it became vulnerable, waiting. Waiting for him.

Obi-Wan was gasping for air. 'I…can't. I know, I can…know it, but Master, I can't understand it.'

_It will be enough. Only know it, know it. The One will bring balance. Then will you trust me, Obi-Wan?_

'Master, I know it!' The four words were shouted, desperately, the next four were whispered, 'I cannot be more.'

The storm was calming now, the wind dropping to a gentler gale force intensity. The air around him, stirring the sand between his legs, gusting his tunic, scouring his lungs and nasal passages, coursing in his blood, was roiling with primal violence. And in _this_ moment, there was the Force, there was Qui-Gon Jinn, the man, immortal who had been mortal, One with the transcendent embrace of the vast, vast Force. _Obi-Wan, do you regret your love for Anakin?_

His response was an inelegant silence, his mind an eloquent, vivid canvas of painfully clear memories over which was spattered a profoundly abstract confusion and uncertainty.

It was as though his Master had faded into One with the Force all over again, until there was only the peace, the passion, the calm of Light when it spoke inside him, the borders of selfhood were blurring, fading already_. Love is that which does not pass away._

Tears start, because here, here, is the whole grief of the universe, the teaching Anakin had _never_ learned to take into his bruising heart—_all things die_. Yes, and even the light of the stars will go out. Have gone out. Even the Son of Suns has plunged in darkness.

_Love is hatred's answer. Faith for betrayal. What is anger, if not love scorned?_

He knows his Master, knows this truth. Cannot understand it. 'Don't—'

_You cling to despair, Obi-Wan. Let it go. You did not fail in protecting him from being taken by darkness. Darkness is a choice we all make, every moment. And love._

He is shaking his head. No, no, no. 'All things…d-die. Even—'

_Obi-Wan, don't go there. Now is not the time. Come, Padawan, trust me this far._

It was, then, neither faith nor passion nor hope that pulled him out of his bestial crouch and onto his feet, but the apathy of duty, a blind bond to promises made long ago, promises and faithfulnesses that had long since had their overripe fullness burned out, scraped raw, tossed into pits of flame, smoked into dust on the wind. The world was disjointed, or had been rearranged into a hideous simulacrum of reality that was all broken shell-pieces, all shattered deception layered so fragile on emptiness, as though the very movements of the constellations were ancient spell-words whose meaning had exploded into oblivion. Ever he followed his invisible, intangible guide, and to Obi-Wan, it seemed that with each step he took, the ground beneath his feet became more solid, more real, each step forward creating the solidity he was entrusting his body to, the sand seething over his boots and the wind plucking at his beard seeking to reassure him of the validity of their existence.

Time moved mysteriously, and before his mind had quite caught up, his feet were walking familiar territory. The seemingly featureless lay of the land, its distinguishing marks disfigured in the wake of the raging sandstorm as though by some vicious knife attack, the crunch of sand beneath his boots, the sand-swamped hut with its bulky vaporators. The home that would serve him until the Force willed Luke trained, and the Sith defeated. Both of which might not occur while he still drew breath, if they even occurred at all. He inhaled sharply, and lengthened his strides, and suddenly, he could see _something_ there, less than a hundred feet from him—he hadn't noticed it sooner because it was perfectly concealed with sand—almost as though someone had deliberately hidden it from view. From the crude, blockish shape of its bulk as the wind shifted the sands tiding over it, he knew it was a landspeeder, and, fearful as he was of the implications of Imperial incursions, his heart rattled anxiously in his chest before he realised it was of local make. Which was almost as bad, because there was no one alive he could see. He broke into a run, his heart sinking as he drew closer and recognised the speeder as the same one he had seen parked outside the Lars homestead nearly a year ago.

Obi-Wan's heart tripped. There was a body crumpled against the leeward side of the speeder, hunched oddly, its posture suggesting it was protecting something beneath it. Forcing himself to be calm, he knelt beside it and began hastily shovelling aside the high sand drifts with slightly trembling hands. He uncovered a smooth, young, feminine face, half-shielded with a thick, homespun cloak; slim shoulders draped in the same heavy, greyish stuff; and then—_oh sweet Force!_—a pair of wiry arms clasped tightly around a fragile bundle of infant softness. Obi-Wan fiercely hugged Luke against his chest, not even thinking to brush away the sand from the child's mouth and nose and ears, and from inside his linen wrappings. It was a miracle he heard the boy's heartbeat through the layers of dusty fabric, over the thundering of his blood in his ears. Still on his knees, he turned to reviving Beru. He manoeuvered her limp body into a sitting position, leaning her weight awkwardly against the speeder. Balancing Luke carefully in the crook of his elbow, he grasped her shoulder and shook gently, calling her name. At the sound of his voice, Luke began to cry.

Beru came round slowly, her eyes fluttering open, and then widening with recognition. 'Massster Ke-Kenobi?' she slurred groggily.

'_Ben_,' he reminded her emphatically. 'Come, don't talk until you've had a rest and a drink.'

Even as he spoke, she violently pulled herself away from the speeder's flank, her gaze darting around wildly. 'Luke?' she cried.

'He's with me—don't worry. I've got him.' He placed a firm hand on her arm and helped her up. 'My house is just fifteen minutes ahead. I'll get both of you in there, then you tell me…'

Once she was safely inside, he handed Luke to her, and sagged against the doorframe. _A Jedi's work is never done…But I'm not a Jedi anymore._

_Aren't you?_

Scowling, he pushed himself away and followed them in. When he silently offered Beru water, she did not protest. She uttered her thanks in a low voice, splashing some over Luke's face and into his mouth before swallowing a good half-jugful, and then passing the jug back to him. He slowly drank the remaining liquid while she looked about—it was her first time here.

When they had both drunk their fill, she said, 'It's hard to think of you living here, like this…Ben.' She used his new name uncertainly, and her gaze studiously avoided his, casting about instead on his spartan furnishings and meagre possessions.

'Me? Why?'

'Well—you being a Jedi, and a general in the Republic during the wars and all.' Gaining confidence, her gaze locked on his face, but his eyes were no longer trying to meet hers. He stared into a vanished distance as he replied, 'Don't speak of such things, Beru. The Republic no longer exists, nor the Jedi, and you'd get us all in trouble, or worse, talking like that.'

'I have to think about it,' she answered, her voice rising a little, 'because this is how my Luke is going to be living, if he's to be a Jedi like his father was.' She paused. Dimly, Obi-Wan's mind registered her casual possessiveness toward Luke, and then she was continuing, 'Owen doesn't talk of such things, but I reckon you're set on training my boy.'

'Beru,' he said clearly. 'Luke is not your son. He is Anakin Skywalker's son. And everything a Jedi possesses, including his family, can be called upon at any time to be sacrificed for the greater good. Luke's life, as was Anakin's, should be avowed to the service of preserving—or creating—peace and justice in the galaxy.' As soon words left his lips, he knew they had been cruel, hypocritical, and, to a large extent, not even true. But he had not been feeling kind or true. He had been feeling empty, a shell of Obi-Wan Kenobi, sitting beside Beru Lars.

He had expected an outburst from her, but she was nodding her head with admirable acceptance of his harsh words. 'He cannot be made to be a farmer all his life,' she said simply. 'I have seen that in him already, and he is just a baby. Owen can't face that, but I have seen what Luke was born to be. I have seen it in him. Take him, when he is ready.' She stopped, and he saw her eyes, close to passionate. He was painfully reminded of the pure faith Shmi Skywalker must have had so long ago, when she entrusted her only child to the care of a tall Jedi and a young handmaiden she barely knew. He wondered if either of the women realised how young Jedi started training. But whether Luke was ready or not was irrelevant. The time had not yet come.

'I know he is for greater things. But it is…hard…' Luke heavy on her lap, she turned her eyes away.

'I understand,' said Obi-Wan softly. _More than you could know_, he thought, his heart aching.

She briefly passed a work-roughened hand over her eyes, then said, 'I came out here so Luke could visit you. Owen's away in town for a few days. I just thought…I just thought if he could see you sometimes…he'd know there's more to the galaxy than vaporators and storage tanks and droid maintenance and beating off Tuskens and gathering mushrooms. So he'd be more ready, when the time comes. If you don't mind?'

He didn't answer her question. 'Owen doesn't like me seeing Luke, Beru?' he asked.

'He doesn't,' she affirmed. 'I hope you'll not go mentioning to him I visited, Ben. I'd never hear the end of it for getting caught out in the storm.'

'Beru,' he said gently. 'Owen may be right. It could be dangerous for Luke to be seen with me by anyone. It's better I watch over him from a distance. Safer from the Empire.'

'Oh.' Her voice caught momentarily. ' I didn't think of that.' She rose to her feet, balancing Luke on her hip. 'I suppose I'd better be going, then. I'm sorry for troubling you—'

He stepped forward, his eyes on Luke, and held his arms out toward the child. 'May I?'

'Of-of course,' she replied, placing Luke into his arms.

Obi-Wan gazed at the vivid intelligence and curiosity and the staggering potential of sheer _power_ within those wide blue eyes—_Anakin_'s eyes—that had aged by almost a year since he had first held this child on Polis Massa. He noted that Luke was able to stand on his own now, and could probably walk fairly steadily. Fear and desire simultaneously uncoiled themselves within him. He roughly tamped down the fierce emotion. 'I don't think he needs me to show him what lies beyond life on a moisture farm, Beru,' he said quietly. 'He is too much like his father.'

She came to stand beside him. After long moments had passed, he spoke, 'Here, take him. I'll see to your speeder.'

'Master Ke—Ben, don't trouble yourself—'

He looked down into her earnest blue eyes. 'Please, Beru, allow me.'


	3. Wash Away The Ashes

**Disclaimer**: All recognisable characters are property of Lucasfilm. I make no monetary profit from this, nor do I intend to.

**Part III: Wash Away The Ashes**

By the time the speeder was fit for the return journey, it was nearly noon. Obi-Wan more than once caught himself wishing Anakin was available to help fix its sandblasted engines.

'Are you sure you won't want to be staying the night?' he asked as he helped her into the front seat. 'It will be dark by the time you get home.'

'Thank you, but it's best I be getting home, Ben,' she answered. 'Owen will be back before noon tomorrow.'

'If you're sure…' He paused. 'Wait here a moment.' He walked briskly inside, returning carrying a large bottle of water, which he hefted into the seat beside her. 'You really shouldn't be travelling in this heat, no matter how much more accustomed to it you are than I,' he observed with a small smile. 'Comm me when you get home.'

'Thank you, Ben, but I'm not a child,' she said, shifting Luke in her arms so she could start the engines.

He rested his forearm on the speeder's hull, feeling it vibrate beneath him, eager to be away across the desert sands. 'But I feel responsible for your safety.'

Beru looked at him, her eyes gentle. 'If you'll excuse me for being so bold,' she said quietly, 'you always feel far too much responsibility for far too many things, Ben.' With her free hand, she lightly pushed his arm off the speeder, and released the acceleration lever. Staring after her as the speeder dwindled into a dark fleck against the unsettled dunes, he realised that she had not even asked for his comlink number. And he wasn't sure himself if the blasted gadget still worked.

Sighing, he trudged back into the house to prepare his midday meal. He was just reaching for a jar of blue milk—he noted with some annoyance that it was almost empty, and he hadn't noticed until now—when he heard a faint tinkle cleave the fierce desert noon. For a moment, he was motionless, hands clenched on air in front of him. It had been, he thought, a year. Not so long, really; Force, it was such a short time. The simmering air still tasted bitter in his mouth. That sound did not belong here—it belonged in _civilisation_—

The holo-transponder Prince Organa had given him chimed again, its call insistent in its delicacy. He spent a long moment groping, gathering, weaving the lost, scattered threads of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and then strode to an alcove in the wall where the holo-transponder nestled, its distinctly Alderaanian design almost outrageously incongruous within its surroundings. Bail Organa appeared dressed in a pale tunic clasped with silver; small and blue and flickering in front of him, the transparent insubstantiality of his holographic image somehow at odds with Obi-Wan's memory of the tall, solidly imposing Senator.

'Captain Antilles.' Obi-Wan spoke without preamble, dispensing with formality for the coded names and signals they had agreed upon eleven months ago.

The Prince nodded in acknowledgement. 'Ben,' he returned. 'It gladdens me to see you in good health.' He paused, seeming to steel himself, and a flicker of surprise frissoned through Obi-Wan—he couldn't recall having seen Bail Organa ever nervous. But when he spoke, his voice was steady as though he addressed the Senate floor. 'Would you like to see her?'

Bail straightened his tunic, while Obi-Wan simply stood and stared. A slim handmaiden brought in the white bundle that was Leia Skywalker. From his spot upon the dusty floor, Obi-Wan could almost smell her baby frangrance. Padmé's daughter. Anakin's daughter. Luke, all over again: they were so different and yet always the same. Without thinking, without meaning to, an unsteady hand reached out and adjusted the holo-reciever until Bail stood large as life before him, Leia cradled in his arms. The cloud of brown hair, the impossibly large round eyes that were kaffe stirred with honey. Padmé's daughter.

'Leia…' _Whose voice cries out?_ He was like Bail, he realised, like Bail. He could never be rational around children.

_'Leia,' gasped Padmé, and the woman who had been Queen at the age of fourteen didn't have the strength to hold her newborn daughter. And Obi-Wan Kenobi carried Leia Skywalker beside her, filthy and bloodied as he was with Anakin's blood, when he had no place in this delivery room, when it should have been Anakin standing here, Anakin repeating his children's names, Anakin holding Padmé's hand as they came into the world, Anakin feeling pure joy at their birth, instead of this brief, dulled flush of life that was bleeding death all over the place._

_It shouldn't be this way._

'Leia.'

Now he had seen both twins within a few hours of each other. The Force, he darkly mused, did indeed have a sense of humour. He was still staring into her round, serious, perfect face when Bail straightened. 'I have news.'

'Yes?' Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows, inwardly grasping for composure.

'Another of our runners,' said Bail cautiously, 'got into some trouble at the Jurre Cluster Field. The cargo won't be making it as early as you'd hoped, I'm afraid.' He stopped, his dark eyes compassionate as Obi-Wan absorbed his words.

Another fugitive Jedi had fallen, presumably at Darth's blade. Obi-Wan hoped not, although that possibility, he knew, was highly unlikely. The clones, or stormtroopers as they were now called, were not yet experienced enough for even a whole company to take on a wary Jedi. It always hurt. It still did. He stood and endured reality, and he knew it would be folly to enquire after the dead Jedi's name. He did not. He asked, instead, 'What do you want me to do about that? Captain?'

'Join us on our next flight, Ben. We need a good navigator like you.'

Obi-Wan hesitated. Then, 'No, I'm sorry.' His gaze shifted back from Bail's face to Leia's. Much lower, almost a whisper, he added, 'I don't like flying, you remember.'

He was a crazy old man. A crazy old man in the middle of nowhere. Hell was aflame behind him, but now he inhabited a lawless limbo of the lost, and he was alone. The desert burned like the searing kiss of lightsaber heat—ironically appropriate, he supposed. _All those who live by the sword_…His memory worked for the old Jedi aphorism as subtle emotions flitted across Bail's shuttered face, each attempting to find purchase.

'Captain Antilles. Take care.'

A warm flash of relief in Bail's eyes. 'You too, Ben.'

Obi-Wan barely acknowledged the concern in his friend's voice. He leaned forward, his jaw tightening. 'No, _you_ take care. You must.'

Bail seemed a little taken aback, but his eyes told Obi-Wan that he had understood. 'Thank you for everything, Ben. Until next time.' He did not wait for Obi-Wan's reply. The hologram stretched out a translucent hand, and then flickered into nothingness.

'Take care,' Obi-Wan repeated softly. He turned to face the desert outside his door. This time of the day, it was a bleached cloth upon which the suns left no shadows, only scars. He wondered how Beru and Luke were faring.

_Obi-Wan, do you remember Xanatos?_

'Not at all. Who the kriff is Xanatos?' he muttered sarcastically under his breath. The Force was silent, seeming to be quietly exasperated at his persistent flippancy, and for a heartbeat he was reminded of so many tense moments he had experienced with Anakin, whose apprenticeship had often been nothing short of stormy. He resisted the urge to throw another childish temper tantrum. 'Don't you presume to understand,' he continued bitterly.

If his dead Master made any response to that, Obi-Wan did not hear it. 'He was my Padawan. Doesn't that mean anything?' His voice, very low, was an anguished plea. 'I wish it had been enough.

Love, his memory supplied, love is the answer.

'That is my poverty,' he whispered. He remembered a time when Qui-Gon had asked him _Doesn't it comfort you, Padawan, to know that whatever else happens in the galaxy, there will always be trees?_ But here, here on Tatooine, there were no trees. Barren, the desert was ageless, and it neither listened nor spoke to him.

Chewing his lower lip thoughtfully—a habit he'd unconsciously picked up from Anakin—Obi-Wan decided to forego the blue milk for that day, settling instead on a couple of Corellian tubers.

He thought of Qui-Gon, of Xanatos and of Anakin, of pools of acid and pools of flame, of the all-consuming conflagration of darkness that always left such acrid ashes in its wake. Could he ever truly leave Mustafar? Walk on without looking back? Could he wash away the ashes, in this waterless place?

Obi-Wan put down the knife he had been using to slice the tubers. _Love_. Pure love. Love without attachment. Faith without dependency. Purity. _Let me love all, and claim no one. Let me be nothing to myself, that I may be the purest vessel of Your will. Let me give without taking. Let me love without possessing_. He touched the Force.

And a tree would blossom here, yes, here, in this desert, yes, it would. Force let it be. _Love_. That would be his own, personal, private Rebellion.


End file.
